[Pil-pc-oceania] Permaculture Countering Slumburbia

[Daniel Rossi]

On 02/04/2008, at 1:00 PM, nicholas at themediasociety.org wrote:

>
> hi Kerry
>
> just to clarify: I am talking aboout the stressed new outer  
> suburbs.. the heartland of un-sustainable living.. .
>
> not the inner city urban elite or the super-annuated semi-retirees  
> in the affluent, leafy, older suburbs.
>
> and the problem is way bigger than housing affordability, we are  
> facing potentially a New Great Depression, I wish I was overstating  
> it, but I am not
>
> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/24f73610-c91e-11dc-9807-000077b07658.html
> http://news.google.com.au/news?q=new+great+depression&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wn
>
> something like 30% of Australians do not have mortgages and so  
> cannot understand the stress, but the majority are heaviliy  
> indebted, at record levels
>
> the question is, will progressive movements such as permaculture get  
> active and provide solutions
>
> http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080218/klein

Nicholas and others. I am still new, so I would like to know how  
permaculture is possible to help 'stressed' outer suburbs. Do you mean  
food production, helping with mortgage repayments, helping with  
interest rate rises ? I have walked down 'sustainability street' in St  
Claire in Western Sydney and I didn't really find anything sustainable  
about it, but someone from Perm West might want to enlighten me on  
that :\.

As for old leafy suburbs , even though there is strong active groups  
in most of these, how is it that they are  sustainable ?

I believe I am finding to retrofit current homes into something quite  
neat widespread is too costly and not possible where people are  
struggling with repayments. Regulations should have copped onto it  
20-30 years ago and started building more wisely, to me they just look  
like they've been slapped together. I always tend to hear things like  
'people could give up buying a luxury car for a solar power kit' but  
who has the money to begin with to actually buy luxury cars ?

Are you meaning removal of private ownership, and things like solar  
power equipment are shared evenly within the local area and not one  
person owns it ?

I do think we should be looking at the indebted poor, homeless and  
unemployed first as they are the forgotten population in my views. I  
just see so much job creation in so many things permaculture or that  
things have already been discussed here.